In The Time Machine, the Psychologist suggests that time traveling might enable a historian to verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings but the Medical Man points out that a time traveler might attract attention and that our ancestors were intolerant of anachronisms. (In Bring The Jubilee by Ward Moore, a time traveler observing the Battle of Gettysburg overlooks the fact that his presence might make a difference...)
The Last Viking by Poul Anderson is historical fiction about Harald Hardrada, ending in 1066.
"Maybe England wouldn't have been that bad - it was the family home from 1066 on and all that."
-SM Stirling, The Sea Peoples (New York, 2017), Chapter Three, p. 39.
4 comments:
Paul:
As noted in the Wikipedia article to which you linked, another author of humorous history similar to 1066 and All That is Richard Armour. I've got two of his, It All Started With Stones and Clubs, a history of war (He speaks of "several colorful battles," then adds a footnote that "The prevalent color was a warm shade of red."), and The Classics Reclassified, satirizing, for instance, Silas Marner as "a moral with a tale."
Several of Armour's book titles, though far from all, begin, "It All Started With..." In It All Started With Columbus, his take on American history, he notes that:
"In an attempt to take Baltimore, the British attacked Fort McHenry, which protected the harbor. Bombs were soon bursting in air, rockets were glaring, and all in all it was a moment of great historical interest. During the bombardment, a young lawyer named Francis "Off" Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, and when, by the dawn's early light, the British heard it sung, they fled in terror!"
Kaor, Paul!
I have wondered what might have happened if King Harald Godwinson had not been forced to fight Duke William with a tired and decimated army so soon after Stamford Bridge. King Harald had to dash almost at once from NE to SE England. Given more time to rest and reinforce his men, he might have defeated William. The consequences of that is impossible to predict, good or bad!
SEan
If the Normans had been repelled, England would probably be considered part of Scandinavia now -- its primary outside political relations had been directed northward for centuries, many of its aristocracy were of partly Norse or Danish descent, and its institutions had been shaped by the long struggle against the Viking invasions.
The version of English we speak is heavily influenced by French -- but it also contains a lot of Norse loanwords (about 800 in the core vocabulary, including things like "sky" and "shirt" and "ship"), because it's based on an East Midland dialect from the Danelaw. There was a lot of emigration from there to London in the medieval period, and that became the foundation of modern standard English.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I'm inclined to agree with you here. An England which had not been conquered by Duke William might well have remained "oriented" towards Scandinavia (esp. Denmark and Norway). At the same time, considering how near southern England (and the de facto co-capitals of Winchester and London) were to France, there would have been influences from there as well.
Sean
Post a Comment